Lei Lei's 'Vertigo Garden' Lands at Asian Shadows Ahead of IDFA Premiere

Asian Shadows has acquired "Vertigo Garden," the second feature by Chinese filmmaker and animation artist Lei Lei, ahead of its world premiere in the Envision Competition at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA). IDFA has also nominated the film for the Beeld en Geluid IDFA ReFrame Award, which honors creative work with archival material.

What is the film about?

"Vertigo Garden" unfolds at the Lushan Botanical Garden and follows the life of its botanist. His body is found in the snow and ice at the top of Lushan Mountain, with both body and brain intact. Scientists study the brain, use AI to reproduce his memories and set them loose in a digital world. Through conversation, the film pieces together the botanist's storied bond with the metasequoia tree and his efforts to communicate with the planet's memories through these ancient trees.

Lei uses the metasequoia to probe how memory, life and the planet connect, combining documentary, 3D animation and experimental techniques.

How did the filmmaker build it?

In a director's statement, Lei wrote that he started filming at the garden, in his hometown, with an 8mm camera in 2024, making long-term field recordings there. He credited Chris Marker's "Sans Soleil" (1983) as the inspiration for the screenplay. The film uses video letters to stage an imagined correspondence between the filmmaker and the botanist.

The statement also set out plans to:

• 3D-scan metasequoia fossils, trunks and the garden's greenhouse
• Move through the digital models with a virtual camera to create effects resembling a video game
• Train AI to generate footage of the same location repeatedly, cutting the results into a flickering effect Lei likened to the work of artist Rose Lowder

Lei wrote and produced the film with Chai Mi. It is produced by See-Ray Studio Production, the animation and visual art company Lei founded.

What did the partners say?

"I believe that Asian Shadows and its team truly love the film. They will treat this film like their own child and promote it to meet audiences around the world, which for me goes beyond what is called a business partnership," Lei said.

Maria A. Ruggieri, head of sales and acquisitions at Asian Shadows, called Lei a singular voice among Chinese filmmakers without any doubt. "His talent as an animator, his search for new representations of China, his love and care for the recreation of lost emotions and history are perfectly assembled one more time in 'Vertigo Garden,'" she said.

Who is Lei Lei?

Born in Nanchang, Lei earned a master's degree in animation from Tsinghua University. He taught experimental animation at CalArts Film & Video School and has been a professor at Tsinghua's Arts and Design Academy since 2022.

His track record spans formats and festivals:

• "Missing One Player" (2015): Prix Ars Electronica and a Silver Dove at DOK Leipzig
• "Breathless Animals" (2019): Berlinale Forum debut; named best mid-length documentary at Iran's Cinéma Vérité
• "Silver Bird and Rainbow Fish" (2022): premiered in the Tiger Competition at International Film Festival Rotterdam

Why this deal matters

Founded in 2014, Asian Shadows sells Asian films by Asian directors worldwide. Its recent titles include Eddie Cahyono's "Ibuku," which won the Busan Award Special Jury Prize at this year's Busan International Film Festival, and "The Seoul Guardians," directed by Kim Jong-woo, Kim Shin-wan and Cho Chul-young, which picked up a Netpac Award special mention in Rotterdam. The catalog also includes Wang Bing's "Man in Black," Soda Kazuhiro's "The Cats of Gokogu Shrine" and Mouly Surya's "This City Is a Battlefield."

"Vertigo Garden" is the third Lei film handled internationally by the company, after "Breathless Animals" and "Silver Bird and Rainbow Fish." The IDFA premiere and ReFrame Award nomination will test whether this third collaboration can carry Lei's AI-inflected archival experiment to the widest audience of his career.

By Elena Vasquez